what is a research notes

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How to take Research Notes

How to take research notes.

Your research notebook is an important piece of information useful for future projects and presentations. Maintaining organized and legible notes allows your research notebook to be a valuable resource to you and your research group. It allows others and yourself to replicate experiments, and it also serves as a useful troubleshooting tool. Besides it being an important part of the research process, taking detailed notes of your research will help you stay organized and allow you to easily review your work.

Here are some common reasons to maintain organized notes:

• Keeps a record of your goals and thoughts during your research experiments.
• Keeps a record of what worked and what didn't in your research experiments.
• Enables others to use your notes as a guide for similar procedures and techniques.
• A helpful tool to reference when writing a paper, submitting a proposal, or giving a presentation.
• Assists you in answering experimental questions.
• Useful to efficiently share experimental approaches, data, and results with others.

Before taking notes:

• Ask your research professor what note-taking method they recommend or prefer.
• Consider what type of media you'll be using to take notes.
• Once you have decided on how you'll be taking notes, be sure to keep all of your notes in one place to remain organized.
• Plan on taking notes regularly (meetings, important dates, procedures, journal/manuscript revisions, etc.).
• This is useful when applying to programs or internships that ask about your research experience.

Note Taking Tips:

Taking notes by hand:.

• Research notebooks don’t belong to you so make sure your notes are legible for others.
• Use post-it notes or tabs to flag important sections.
• Start sorting your notes early so that you don't become backed up and disorganized.
• Only write with a pen as pencils aren’t permanent & sharpies can bleed through.
• Make it a habit to write in your notebook and not directly on sticky notes or paper towels. Rewriting notes can waste time and sometimes lead to inaccurate data or results.

Taking Notes Electronically

• Make sure your device is charged and backed up to store data.
• Invest in note-taking apps or E-Ink tablets
• Create shortcuts to your folders so you have easier access
• Create outlines.
• Keep your notes short and legible.

Note Taking Tips Continued:

Things to avoid.

• Avoid using pencils or markers that may bleed through.
• Avoid erasing entries. Instead, draw a straight line through any mistakes and write the date next to the crossed-out information.
• Avoid writing in cursive.
• Avoid delaying your entries so you don’t fall behind and forget information.

Formatting Tips

• Use bullet points to condense your notes to make them simpler to access or color-code them.
• Tracking your failures and mistakes can improve your work in the future.
• If possible, take notes as you’re experimenting or make time at the end of each workday to get it done.
• Record the date at the start of every day, including all dates spent on research.

Types of media to use when taking notes:

Traditional paper notebook.

• Pros: Able to take quick notes, convenient access to notes, cheaper option
• Cons: Requires a table of contents or tabs as it is not easily searchable, can get damaged easily, needs to be scanned if making a digital copy

Electronic notebook  

• Apple Notes  
• Pros: Easily searchable, note-taking apps available, easy to edit & customize
• Cons: Can be difficult to find notes if they are unorganized, not as easy to take quick notes, can be a more expensive option

Combination of both

Contact info.

618 Kerr Administration Building Corvallis, OR 97331

541-737-5105

Research note

• Extensions or updates to previously published research
• The reporting of additional controls 
• Short descriptions of research projects that did not provide publishable results but represent valuable information regarding protocol and data collection
• Additions to established (software) tools and experimental or computational methods, e.g. new functionality of user interface, improvements in performance or the release on a new platform
• Replication studies
• Null results
• Data management plans

Authors must clearly acknowledge any work upon which they are building, both published and unpublished. 

Manuscripts reporting results of a clinical trial must conform to CONSORT 2010 guidelines. Authors of randomized controlled trials should submit a completed CONSORT checklist alongside their manuscript, available at  www.consort-statement.org .

Please note that pooled analyses of selected published research and bibliometric analyses will not be considered. Studies reporting descriptive results from a single institution or region will only be considered if analogous data have not been previously published in a peer reviewed journal and the conclusions provide distinct insights that are of relevance to a regional or international audience.

BMC Research Notes does not consider systematic reviews or meta-analyses. These should be published as full research articles in one of our BMC Series sister journals.  Additional criteria apply if your manuscript describes a software tool or data management plan. Please click on the respective link below to view these. These manuscripts should be submitted as a research note.

• Data management plan

Image integrity and standards Cropped gels and blots can be included in the main text if it improves the clarity and conciseness of the presentation. In such cases, the cropping of the blot must be clearly evident and must be mentioned in the figure legend. Corresponding uncropped full-length gels and blot must be included in the supplementary files. These uncropped images should indicate where they were cropped, be labelled as in the main text and placed in a single supplementary figure. The manuscript's figure legends should state that 'Full-length blots/gels are presented in Supplementary Figure X'. Further information can be found under 'Digital image integrity' which are detailed on our  Standards of Reporting  page.

Data sharing BMC Research Notes strongly supports open research, including transparency and openness in reporting. Further details of our Data availability policy can be found on the journal's About  page.

BMC Research Notes  strongly encourages that all datasets on which the conclusions of the paper rely should be available to readers. We encourage authors to ensure that their datasets are either deposited in publicly available repositories (where available and appropriate) or presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files whenever possible. Please see Springer Nature’s  data repository guidance . Where a widely established research community expectation for data archiving in public repositories exists, submission to a community-endorsed, public repository is mandatory. A list of data where deposition is required, with the appropriate repositories, can be found on the  Editorial Policies Page .

Authors who need help depositing data may wish to contact our  Research Data Support Helpdesk . The use of the service is optional and does not imply or guarantee that a manuscript will be accepted.

Preparing your manuscript

The information below details the section headings that you should include in your manuscript and the information required within each section. For a one-page summary of what a research note article should look like, please click here .

Please ensure you adhere to the word limits for research notes:

• Abstract: 200 words
• Introduction, main text and limitations together: 2000 words

List of abbreviation, declarations, references, figures, figure headings, figure legends, tables, table headings and table legends do not count towards the above stated word limits.

Please note that your manuscript must include a ‘Declarations’ section including all of the subheadings (please see below for more information).  For all research involving human subjects, written informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their parent or legal guardian in the case of children under 16). BMC Research Notes does not consider research where only verbal informed consent has been obtained.

Please limit the number of tables and figures in your manuscript to 3 in order to be consistent with a note article type. Additional figures and/or tables can be included as supplementary files.

The title page should:

• Present a title that includes a clear description of what the manuscript reports
• If a collaboration group should be listed as an author, please list the group name as an author. If you would like the names of the individual members of the group to be searchable through their individual PubMed records, please include this information in the “Acknowledgements” section in accordance with the instructions below
• Indicate the corresponding author

The abstract should not exceed 200 words. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract. The abstract must include the following separate sections:

• Objective: The purpose and objective of the research presented.
• Results: A brief summary of the main findings.

If the data presented is a single observation or the side product of another research project then authors should state this in the abstract under objective.

Professionally produced Visual Abstracts BMC Research Notes will consider visual abstracts. As an author submitting to the journal, you may wish to make use of services provided at Springer Nature for high quality and affordable visual abstracts where you are entitled to a 20% discount. Click here to find out more about the service, and your discount will be automatically be applied when using this link.

Three to ten keywords representing the main content of the article.

Introduction

The introduction should be brief and provide the motivation/objective for the work presented in the manuscript, e.g.

• Where does the data come from?
• Why was the data obtained?

If the data presented is a single observation or the side product of another research project then authors should state this in the introduction. This will not negatively impact editorial assessment as BMC Research Notes aims to make single observations available to the scientific community.

We are not looking for a detailed and lengthy introduction to the topic and authors should instead cite relevant review articles. Authors should not provide a general review of the related literature but instead cite relevant work if the manuscript extends previously published or unpublished research.

For data management plans, the introduction should briefly summarize the research project for which the data management plan was written.

This should contain the body of the research note, and may also be broken into subsections with short and informative headings. Methods should be described in sufficient detail to allow repeatability. Authors should concisely describe the data or results they present and provide a critical discussion of the findings within the context of the research field. If an observation cannot be explained or put in context of the current literature then authors are encouraged to state that.

Limitations

BMC Research Notes considers scientifically valid manuscripts irrespective of the interest of a study or its likely impact. In order to ensure submissions to BMC Research Notes are of maximum benefit to the research community, authors should clearly state the limitations of their work.

Introduction, main text and limitations together must not exceed 2000 words.

List of abbreviations

If abbreviations are used in the text they should be defined in the text at first use, and a list of abbreviations should be provided.

Declarations

All manuscripts must contain the following sections under the heading 'Declarations':

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Consent for publication, availability of data and materials, competing interests, authors' contributions, acknowledgements.

• Authors' information (optional)

Please see below for details on the information to be included in these sections.

If any of the sections are not relevant to your manuscript, please include the heading and write 'Not applicable' for that section. 

Manuscripts reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must:

• include a statement on ethics approval and consent (even where the need for approval was waived)
• include the name of the ethics committee that approved the study and the committee’s reference number if appropriate

Studies involving animals must include a statement on ethics approval and for experimental studies involving client-owned animals, authors must also include a statement on informed consent from the client or owner.

See our editorial policies for more information.

If your manuscript does not report on or involve the use of any animal or human data or tissue, please state “Not applicable” in this section.

If your manuscript contains any individual person’s data in any form (including any individual details, images or videos), consent for publication must be obtained from that person, or in the case of children, their parent or legal guardian. All presentations of case reports must have consent for publication.

You can use your institutional consent form or our consent form if you prefer. You should not send the form to us on submission, but we may request to see a copy at any stage (including after publication).

See our editorial policies for more information on consent for publication.

If your manuscript does not contain data from any individual person, please state “Not applicable” in this section.

All manuscripts must include an ‘Availability of data and materials’ statement. Data availability statements should include information on where data supporting the results reported in the article can be found including, where applicable, hyperlinks to publicly archived datasets analysed or generated during the study. By data we mean the minimal dataset that would be necessary to interpret, replicate and build upon the findings reported in the article. We recognise it is not always possible to share research data publicly, for instance when individual privacy could be compromised, and in such instances data availability should still be stated in the manuscript along with any conditions for access.

Authors are also encouraged to preserve search strings on searchRxiv https://searchrxiv.org/ , an archive to support researchers to report, store and share their searches consistently and to enable them to review and re-use existing searches. searchRxiv enables researchers to obtain a digital object identifier (DOI) for their search, allowing it to be cited. 

Data availability statements can take one of the following forms (or a combination of more than one if required for multiple datasets):

• The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS]
• The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
• All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article [and its supplementary information files].
• The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available due [REASON WHY DATA ARE NOT PUBLIC] but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
• Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
• The data that support the findings of this study are available from [third party name] but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of [third party name].
• Not applicable. If your manuscript does not contain any data, please state 'Not applicable' in this section.

More examples of template data availability statements, which include examples of openly available and restricted access datasets, are available here .

BioMed Central strongly encourages the citation of any publicly available data on which the conclusions of the paper rely in the manuscript. Data citations should include a persistent identifier (such as a DOI) and should ideally be included in the reference list. Citations of datasets, when they appear in the reference list, should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite and follow journal style. Dataset identifiers including DOIs should be expressed as full URLs. For example:

Hao Z, AghaKouchak A, Nakhjiri N, Farahmand A. Global integrated drought monitoring and prediction system (GIDMaPS) data sets. figshare. 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.853801

With the corresponding text in the Availability of data and materials statement:

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the [NAME] repository, [PERSISTENT WEB LINK TO DATASETS]. [Reference number]  

If you wish to co-submit a data note describing your data to be published in BMC Research Notes , you can do so by visiting our submission portal . Data notes support open data and help authors to comply with funder policies on data sharing. Co-published data notes will be linked to the research article the data support ( example ).

All financial and non-financial competing interests must be declared in this section.

See our editorial policies for a full explanation of competing interests. If you are unsure whether you or any of your co-authors have a competing interest please contact the editorial office.

Please use the authors initials to refer to each authors' competing interests in this section.

If you do not have any competing interests, please state "The authors declare that they have no competing interests" in this section.

All sources of funding for the research reported should be declared. If the funder has a specific role in the conceptualization, design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript, this should be declared.

The individual contributions of authors to the manuscript should be specified in this section. Guidance and criteria for authorship can be found in our editorial policies .

Please use initials to refer to each author's contribution in this section, for example: "FC analyzed and interpreted the patient data regarding the hematological disease and the transplant. RH performed the histological examination of the kidney, and was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript."

Please acknowledge anyone who contributed towards the article who does not meet the criteria for authorship including anyone who provided professional writing services or materials.

Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgements section.

See our editorial policies for a full explanation of acknowledgements and authorship criteria.

If you do not have anyone to acknowledge, please write "Not applicable" in this section.

Group authorship (for manuscripts involving a collaboration group): if you would like the names of the individual members of a collaboration Group to be searchable through their individual PubMed records, please ensure that the title of the collaboration Group is included on the title page and in the submission system and also include collaborating author names as the last paragraph of the “Acknowledgements” section. Please add authors in the format First Name, Middle initial(s) (optional), Last Name. You can add institution or country information for each author if you wish, but this should be consistent across all authors.

Please note that individual names may not be present in the PubMed record at the time a published article is initially included in PubMed as it takes PubMed additional time to code this information.

Authors' information

This section is optional.

You may choose to use this section to include any relevant information about the author(s) that may aid the reader's interpretation of the article, and understand the standpoint of the author(s). This may include details about the authors' qualifications, current positions they hold at institutions or societies, or any other relevant background information. Please refer to authors using their initials. Note this section should not be used to describe any competing interests.

Footnotes can be used to give additional information, which may include the citation of a reference included in the reference list. They should not consist solely of a reference citation, and they should never include the bibliographic details of a reference. They should also not contain any figures or tables.

Footnotes to the text are numbered consecutively; those to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data). Footnotes to the title or the authors of the article are not given reference symbols.

Always use footnotes instead of endnotes.

Examples of the Vancouver reference style are shown below.

See our editorial policies for author guidance on good citation practice

Web links and URLs: All web links and URLs, including links to the authors' own websites, should be given a reference number and included in the reference list rather than within the text of the manuscript. They should be provided in full, including both the title of the site and the URL, as well as the date the site was accessed, in the following format: The Mouse Tumor Biology Database. http://tumor.informatics.jax.org/mtbwi/index.do . Accessed 20 May 2013. If an author or group of authors can clearly be associated with a web link, such as for weblogs, then they should be included in the reference.

Example reference style:

Article within a journal

Smith JJ. The world of science. Am J Sci. 1999;36:234-5.

Article within a journal (no page numbers)

Rohrmann S, Overvad K, Bueno-de-Mesquita HB, Jakobsen MU, Egeberg R, Tjønneland A, et al. Meat consumption and mortality - results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. BMC Medicine. 2013;11:63.

Article within a journal by DOI

Slifka MK, Whitton JL. Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. Dig J Mol Med. 2000; doi:10.1007/s801090000086.

Article within a journal supplement

Frumin AM, Nussbaum J, Esposito M. Functional asplenia: demonstration of splenic activity by bone marrow scan. Blood 1979;59 Suppl 1:26-32.

Book chapter, or an article within a book

Wyllie AH, Kerr JFR, Currie AR. Cell death: the significance of apoptosis. In: Bourne GH, Danielli JF, Jeon KW, editors. International review of cytology. London: Academic; 1980. p. 251-306.

OnlineFirst chapter in a series (without a volume designation but with a DOI)

Saito Y, Hyuga H. Rate equation approaches to amplification of enantiomeric excess and chiral symmetry breaking. Top Curr Chem. 2007. doi:10.1007/128_2006_108.

Complete book, authored

Blenkinsopp A, Paxton P. Symptoms in the pharmacy: a guide to the management of common illness. 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Science; 1998.

Online document

Doe J. Title of subordinate document. In: The dictionary of substances and their effects. Royal Society of Chemistry. 1999. http://www.rsc.org/dose/title of subordinate document. Accessed 15 Jan 1999.

Online database

Healthwise Knowledgebase. US Pharmacopeia, Rockville. 1998. http://www.healthwise.org. Accessed 21 Sept 1998.

Supplementary material/private homepage

Doe J. Title of supplementary material. 2000. http://www.privatehomepage.com. Accessed 22 Feb 2000.

University site

Doe, J: Title of preprint. http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/mydata.html (1999). Accessed 25 Dec 1999.

Doe, J: Trivial HTTP, RFC2169. ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2169.txt (1999). Accessed 12 Nov 1999.

Organization site

ISSN International Centre: The ISSN register. http://www.issn.org (2006). Accessed 20 Feb 2007.

Dataset with persistent identifier

Zheng L-Y, Guo X-S, He B, Sun L-J, Peng Y, Dong S-S, et al. Genome data from sweet and grain sorghum (Sorghum bicolor). GigaScience Database. 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.5524/100012 .

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13.5 Research Process: Making Notes, Synthesizing Information, and Keeping a Research Log

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Employ the methods and technologies commonly used for research and communication within various fields.
• Practice and apply strategies such as interpretation, synthesis, response, and critique to compose texts that integrate the writer’s ideas with those from appropriate sources.
• Analyze and make informed decisions about intellectual property based on the concepts that motivate them.
• Apply citation conventions systematically.

As you conduct research, you will work with a range of “texts” in various forms, including sources and documents from online databases as well as images, audio, and video files from the Internet. You may also work with archival materials and with transcribed and analyzed primary data. Additionally, you will be taking notes and recording quotations from secondary sources as you find materials that shape your understanding of your topic and, at the same time, provide you with facts and perspectives. You also may download articles as PDFs that you then annotate. Like many other students, you may find it challenging to keep so much material organized, accessible, and easy to work with while you write a major research paper. As it does for many of those students, a research log for your ideas and sources will help you keep track of the scope, purpose, and possibilities of any research project.

A research log is essentially a journal in which you collect information, ask questions, and monitor the results. Even if you are completing the annotated bibliography for Writing Process: Informing and Analyzing , keeping a research log is an effective organizational tool. Like Lily Tran’s research log entry, most entries have three parts: a part for notes on secondary sources, a part for connections to the thesis or main points, and a part for your own notes or questions. Record source notes by date, and allow room to add cross-references to other entries.

Summary of Assignment: Research Log

Your assignment is to create a research log similar to the student model. You will use it for the argumentative research project assigned in Writing Process: Integrating Research to record all secondary source information: your notes, complete publication data, relation to thesis, and other information as indicated in the right-hand column of the sample entry.

Another Lens. A somewhat different approach to maintaining a research log is to customize it to your needs or preferences. You can apply shading or color coding to headers, rows, and/or columns in the three-column format (for colors and shading). Or you can add columns to accommodate more information, analysis, synthesis, or commentary, formatting them as you wish. Consider adding a column for questions only or one for connections to other sources. Finally, consider a different visual format , such as one without columns. Another possibility is to record some of your comments and questions so that you have an aural rather than a written record of these.

Writing Center

At this point, or at any other point during the research and writing process, you may find that your school’s writing center can provide extensive assistance. If you are unfamiliar with the writing center, now is a good time to pay your first visit. Writing centers provide free peer tutoring for all types and phases of writing. Discussing your research with a trained writing center tutor can help you clarify, analyze, and connect ideas as well as provide feedback on works in progress.

Quick Launch: Beginning Questions

You may begin your research log with some open pages in which you freewrite, exploring answers to the following questions. Although you generally would do this at the beginning, it is a process to which you likely will return as you find more information about your topic and as your focus changes, as it may during the course of your research.

• What information have I found so far?
• What do I still need to find?
• Where am I most likely to find it?

These are beginning questions. Like Lily Tran, however, you will come across general questions or issues that a quick note or freewrite may help you resolve. The key to this section is to revisit it regularly. Written answers to these and other self-generated questions in your log clarify your tasks as you go along, helping you articulate ideas and examine supporting evidence critically. As you move further into the process, consider answering the following questions in your freewrite:

• What evidence looks as though it best supports my thesis?
• What evidence challenges my working thesis?
• How is my thesis changing from where it started?

Creating the Research Log

As you gather source material for your argumentative research paper, keep in mind that the research is intended to support original thinking. That is, you are not writing an informational report in which you simply supply facts to readers. Instead, you are writing to support a thesis that shows original thinking, and you are collecting and incorporating research into your paper to support that thinking. Therefore, a research log, whether digital or handwritten, is a great way to keep track of your thinking as well as your notes and bibliographic information.

In the model below, Lily Tran records the correct MLA bibliographic citation for the source. Then, she records a note and includes the in-text citation here to avoid having to retrieve this information later. Perhaps most important, Tran records why she noted this information—how it supports her thesis: The human race must turn to sustainable food systems that provide healthy diets with minimal environmental impact, starting now . Finally, she makes a note to herself about an additional visual to include in the final paper to reinforce the point regarding the current pressure on food systems. And she connects the information to other information she finds, thus cross-referencing and establishing a possible synthesis. Use a format similar to that in Table 13.4 to begin your own research log.

Types of Research Notes

Taking good notes will make the research process easier by enabling you to locate and remember sources and use them effectively. While some research projects requiring only a few sources may seem easily tracked, research projects requiring more than a few sources are more effectively managed when you take good bibliographic and informational notes. As you gather evidence for your argumentative research paper, follow the descriptions and the electronic model to record your notes. You can combine these with your research log, or you can use the research log for secondary sources and your own note-taking system for primary sources if a division of this kind is helpful. Either way, be sure to include all necessary information.

Bibliographic Notes

These identify the source you are using. When you locate a useful source, record the information necessary to find that source again. It is important to do this as you find each source, even before taking notes from it. If you create bibliographic notes as you go along, then you can easily arrange them in alphabetical order later to prepare the reference list required at the end of formal academic papers. If your instructor requires you to use MLA formatting for your essay, be sure to record the following information:

• Title of source
• Title of container (larger work in which source is included)
• Other contributors
• Publication date

When using MLA style with online sources, also record the following information:

• Date of original publication
• Date of access
• DOI (A DOI, or digital object identifier, is a series of digits and letters that leads to the location of an online source. Articles in journals are often assigned DOIs to ensure that the source can be located, even if the URL changes. If your source is listed with a DOI, use that instead of a URL.)

It is important to understand which documentation style your instructor will require you to use. Check the Handbook for MLA Documentation and Format and APA Documentation and Format styles . In addition, you can check the style guide information provided by the Purdue Online Writing Lab .

Informational Notes

These notes record the relevant information found in your sources. When writing your essay, you will work from these notes, so be sure they contain all the information you need from every source you intend to use. Also try to focus your notes on your research question so that their relevance is clear when you read them later. To avoid confusion, work with separate entries for each piece of information recorded. At the top of each entry, identify the source through brief bibliographic identification (author and title), and note the page numbers on which the information appears. Also helpful is to add personal notes, including ideas for possible use of the information or cross-references to other information. As noted in Writing Process: Integrating Research , you will be using a variety of formats when borrowing from sources. Below is a quick review of these formats in terms of note-taking processes. By clarifying whether you are quoting directly, paraphrasing, or summarizing during these stages, you can record information accurately and thus take steps to avoid plagiarism.

Direct Quotations, Paraphrases, and Summaries

A direct quotation is an exact duplication of the author’s words as they appear in the original source. In your notes, put quotation marks around direct quotations so that you remember these words are the author’s, not yours. One advantage of copying exact quotations is that it allows you to decide later whether to include a quotation, paraphrase, or summary. ln general, though, use direct quotations only when the author’s words are particularly lively or persuasive.

A paraphrase is a restatement of the author’s words in your own words. Paraphrase to simplify or clarify the original author’s point. In your notes, use paraphrases when you need to record details but not exact words.

A summary is a brief condensation or distillation of the main point and most important details of the original source. Write a summary in your own words, with facts and ideas accurately represented. A summary is useful when specific details in the source are unimportant or irrelevant to your research question. You may find you can summarize several paragraphs or even an entire article or chapter in just a few sentences without losing useful information. It is a good idea to note when your entry contains a summary to remind you later that it omits detailed information. See Writing Process Integrating Research for more detailed information and examples of quotations, paraphrases, and summaries and when to use them.

Other Systems for Organizing Research Logs and Digital Note-Taking

Students often become frustrated and at times overwhelmed by the quantity of materials to be managed in the research process. If this is your first time working with both primary and secondary sources, finding ways to keep all of the information in one place and well organized is essential.

Because gathering primary evidence may be a relatively new practice, this section is designed to help you navigate the process. As mentioned earlier, information gathered in fieldwork is not cataloged, organized, indexed, or shelved for your convenience. Obtaining it requires diligence, energy, and planning. Online resources can assist you with keeping a research log. Your college library may have subscriptions to tools such as Todoist or EndNote. Consult with a librarian to find out whether you have access to any of these. If not, use something like the template shown in Figure 13.8 , or another like it, as a template for creating your own research notes and organizational tool. You will need to have a record of all field research data as well as the research log for all secondary sources.

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• Authors: Michelle Bachelor Robinson, Maria Jerskey, featuring Toby Fulwiler
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Writing Guide with Handbook
• Publication date: Dec 21, 2021
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Useful Research Notes

Why is notetaking important, what should i note.

• Guidelines for good notetaking

5 Notetaking Pitfalls to Avoid

• Note templates

Good notes ask questions, summarize key points, analyse, connect to your thesis, and to other sources.

Taking notes helps you read analytically and critically. Notetaking also provides distance from sources, making it a useful strategy to avoid plagiarism.

Bibliographic or Reference Information

Before taking any notes on content, record the bibliographic information. For books, r ecord the author, title, publisher, place of publication, and date published and for journal articles, you need the name of the journal, the volume and issue numbers, the year published, and pages.

Summary or Paraphrase

Most of your notes will be of summaries of an author’s ideas, arguments, or findings with some paraphrases of more specific ideas. It is essential that you strive for accuracy. Do not confuse what you want research to show with what it does show, and do not make a point out of context. 

Facts and Figures

Be meticulous when you record facts or figures.

Quote thoughtfully and carefully; take note of context so you can be true to the author’s intent.  Remember to always place quotation marks around direct quotations in your notes.

Record important terms or words that need clarification. Your ability to use these words correctly and to define terms clearly will affect the success of your argument and analysis.

Response and Analysis

Record your insights and questions as you read; your notes will then provide that necessary balance between yourself and the material.

• Consider how the interpretation offered by the text addresses your topic and it relates to your thesis.
• Compare and contrast competing arguments between scholars.
• Assess the author’s use of evidence or the logic of his or her argument.
• Ask questions like “how,” “why,” and “so what?”
• Ask how your research supports your thesis or doesn't support it, as the case may be, and how you will have to deal with it in your essay.

Guidelines for Good Notetaking

• Have a clear direction: Maintain a clear focus on the purpose of your work. As you read and research, revise and modify your tentative thesis and outline.
• Organize your notes carefully: set up a folder for your research, save your digital files frequently and clearly label all files.
• Take point-form notes in your own words as much as possible: include your own thoughts and analysis about the reading. Make sure to note references and page numbers for all sources.
• Wait for breaks in the reading (paragraph, sub-section, chapter) before summarizing the author's ideas; then go back to specific details you wish to include.
• Once you have finished the whole text, review your notes, and summarize the key points and how they relate to your work.
• Taking too many notes: without a clear research direction, you may take far too many notes. Consider your purpose; only record ideas relevant to your topic and thesis and which have a place in your outline.
• Using sticky notes or highlighting instead of taking point-from notes: putting ideas into your words makes you think about material more carefully. It also helps avoid plagiarism.
• Copying and pasting from electronic sources: this makes it hard to remember if ideas belong to you or the author. In addition, you may rely too heavily on direct quotation in your paper, with little attention to analysis.
• Incomplete referencing: when you record references at the final stages of writing, it is easier to miss essential information or have difficulty finding the texts again.
• Recording content but not your analysis: ignoring your own response can lead you to a paper with too much summary and not enough analysis.

Writing a Research Paper: 5. Taking Notes & Documenting Sources

• Getting Started
• 1. Topic Ideas
• 2. Thesis Statement & Outline
• 3. Appropriate Sources
• 4. Search Techniques
• 5. Taking Notes & Documenting Sources
• 6. Evaluating Sources
• 7. Citations & Plagiarism
• 8. Writing Your Research Paper

Taking Notes & Documenting Sources

How to take notes and document sources.

Note taking is a very important part of the research process.  It will help you:

• keep your ideas and sources organized
• effectively use the information you find
• avoid plagiarism

When you find good information to be used in your paper:

• Read the text critically, think how it is related to your argument, and decide how you are going to use it in your paper.
• Select the material that is relevant to your argument.
• Copy the original text for direct quotations or briefly summarize the content in your own words, and make note of how you will use it.
• Copy the citation or publication information of the source.
• << Previous: 4. Search Techniques
• Next: 6. Evaluating Sources >>
• Last Updated: Sep 26, 2023 5:26 PM
• URL: https://kenrick.libguides.com/writing-a-research-paper

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42 Timeless Tips On How To Effectively Take Research Notes

Improve your note-taking skills with timeless tips on effectively taking research notes. Enhance your study sessions and research projects today.

Mar 11, 2024

Discover the significance of meticulous note-taking in the realm of academia and research with a deep dive into the world of research notes. Understanding the distinction between primary vs secondary sources is crucial for scholarly pursuits. Uncover how researchers leverage these notes to capture critical insights, citations, and observations, providing a roadmap for future investigations. Gain valuable insights into the meticulous process of documenting, organizing, and analyzing research data for enhanced academic endeavors.

Table of Contents

What are research notes, complete guide on how to effectively take research notes, supercharge your researching ability with otio — try otio for free today.

Research notes are essential tools used by knowledge workers, researchers, and students to document and organize their findings, thoughts, and insights during the research process . These notes serve as a repository of information gathered from various sources such as articles, books, websites, and interviews. They help individuals track their progress, remember important details, and structure their ideas effectively.

How Can Otio Transform Your Research Workflow?

Knowledge workers, researchers, and students today struggle with content overload and the complexities of using multiple tools for their research tasks. Otio offers a solution by providing an AI-native workspace tailored for researchers. It simplifies the research process by enabling users to collect data from diverse sources, extract key takeaways using AI-generated notes, and create draft outputs seamlessly.  With features like AI-generated notes on various content types and AI-assisted writing, Otio streamlines the research process and helps individuals create high-quality research papers and essays efficiently.

Why Otio Stands Out as Your AI Research and Writing Partner

Otio stands out as an invaluable AI research and writing partner due to its ability to streamline the research process from data collection to content creation. By offering features such as AI-generated notes on all content types, interactive chat capabilities similar to ChatGPT, and AI-assisted writing, Otio empowers researchers to enhance their productivity and produce quality outputs faster. Embrace Otio as your AI research and writing partner today and experience a seamless and efficient research journey.

Otio - Your AI Research and Writing Partner

Knowledge workers, researchers, and students today suffer from content overload and are left to deal with it using fragmented, complex, and manual tooling. Too many of them settle for stitching together complicated bookmarking, read-it-later, and note-taking apps to get through their workflows. Now that anyone can create content with the click of a button - this problem is only going to get worse. Otio solves this problem by providing one AI-native workspace for researchers. It helps them: 

A wide range of data sources, from bookmarks, tweets, and extensive books to YouTube videos.

2. Extract key takeaways

With detailed AI-generated notes and source-grounded Q&A chat.

Draft outputs using the sources you’ve collected. Otio helps you to go from reading list to first draft faster. Along with this, Otio also helps you write research papers/essays faster. Here are our top features that are loved by researchers: AI-generated notes on all bookmarks (Youtube videos, PDFs, articles, etc.), Otio enables you to chat with individual links or entire knowledge bases, just like you chat with ChatGPT, as well as AI assisted writing. Let Otio be your AI research and writing partner — try Otio for free today!

Related Reading

• How To Read A Research Paper • Sources For Research Paper • How Many Sources Should A Research Paper Have • How To Read Scientific Papers • How To Find Sources For A Research Paper • Google Scholar Search Tips • Literature Synthesis

1. Use a Consistent Format

Create a clear structure for your notes to easily find and review information later.

2. Summarize Key Points

Condense information into concise summaries to grasp the main ideas quickly.

3. Organize by Topic

Categorize your notes by subject to maintain a logical flow of information.

4. Use Keywords

Highlight essential terms to quickly identify important concepts when revisiting your notes.

5. Include Citations

Record sources alongside your notes to ensure proper referencing in your research.

6. Use Abbreviations

Develop a list of abbreviations for common terms to streamline note-taking.

7. Visual Aids

Incorporate diagrams, charts, or tables to enhance understanding and retention.

8. Incorporate Quotations

Capture direct quotes accurately to support your arguments and findings.

9. Review Regularly

Schedule time to review and update your notes to reinforce retention.

10. Utilize Color Coding

Assign colors to different categories for a visual organization method.

11. Mind Mapping

Create visual representations of ideas to establish relationships between different concepts.

12. Include Page Numbers

Note the page numbers of your sources to locate information easily when needed.

13. Group Information

Group related details together for a comprehensive overview of specific topics.

14. Limit Bullet Points

Use bullet points sparingly to avoid overwhelming your notes with fragmented information.

15. Record Questions

Pose questions based on your notes to guide further research or critical thinking.

16. Define Acronyms

Define acronyms or abbreviations to ensure clarity in your notes.

17. Active Listening

Engage actively during lectures or interviews to capture essential points accurately.

18. Paraphrase

Rewrite information in your own words to deepen understanding and promote retention.

19. Avoid Plagiarism

Attribute ideas correctly and refrain from copying verbatim text without citation.

20. Separate Personal Insights

Distinguish your thoughts from the original content to maintain clarity.

21. Utilize Software Tools

Explore note-taking apps or software for digital organization and accessibility.

22. Create Templates

Establish templates for different types of research to streamline the note-taking process .

23. Prioritize Information

Focus on recording critical details over minor or tangential points.

24. Use Symbols

Employ symbols or icons to denote importance levels or key concepts in your notes.

25. Establish Timelines

Note dates or timelines within your research to track the progression of ideas or events.

26. Develop an Index

Create an index or table of contents for quick reference to specific topics within your notes.

27. Collaborate with Peers

Share notes with colleagues to gain diverse perspectives and enrich your research.

28. Track Sources

Keep a detailed record of all sources consulted to facilitate accurate referencing.

29. Embrace Digitalization

Digitize handwritten notes for easy access and searchability across platforms.

30. Prioritize Clarity

Ensure your notes are clear and concise to facilitate comprehension during review sessions.

31. Use Cross-References

Link related notes or concepts to establish connections within your research.

32. Emphasize Key Terms

Highlight crucial terms or concepts to draw attention to pivotal ideas.

33. Review and Edit

Regularly review and edit your notes for accuracy, relevance, and coherence.

34. Remove Redundancy

Eliminate redundant information to streamline your notes and enhance clarity.

35. Stay Updated

Continuously update your notes with new insights or discoveries to maintain relevance.

36. Engage with Multimedia

Incorporate multimedia elements like images or videos to enrich your notes.

37. Leverage Text Formatting

Utilize bold, italics, or underline for emphasis and hierarchy in your notes.

38. Seek Feedback

Share your notes with mentors or peers for constructive feedback and improvement.

39. Practice Active Reading

Engage critically with sources to extract essential information effectively.

40. Utilize Templates

Utilize note-taking templates for structured and efficient information organization.

41. Be Selective

Focus on capturing information that directly contributes to your research objectives.

42. Stay Consistent

Maintain a regular note-taking routine to cultivate a habit and enhance productivity.

AI research and writing partner

Knowledge workers, researchers, and students today suffer from content overload and are left to deal with it using fragmented, complex, and manual tooling. Too many of them settle for stitching together complicated bookmarking, read-it-later, and note-taking apps to get through their workflows. Now that anyone can create content with the click of a button - this problem is only going to get worse. Otio solves this problem by providing one AI-native workspace for researchers. It helps them:

Draft outputs using the sources you’ve collected. Otio helps you go from reading list to first draft faster. Along with this, Otio also helps you write research papers/essays faster. Here are our top features that are loved by researchers: AI-generated notes on all bookmarks (Youtube videos, PDFs, articles, etc.), Otio enables you to chat with individual links or entire knowledge bases, just like you chat with ChatGPT, as well as AI-assisted writing.  Let Otio be your AI research and writing partner — try Otio for free today!

• How To Tell If An Article Is Peer Reviewed • Reliable Sources For Research • Literature Search • How To Summarize A Research Article • Best Databases For Research • Using Ai For Research • Summarize Research Paper Ai • How To Use Chat Gpt For Research • How To Search For Research Articles

Research notes are a crucial aspect of any researcher's workflow, serving as the foundation for organizing, synthesizing, and retaining information gathered during the research process. These notes provide a roadmap for the researcher, aiding in the development of ideas, analysis, and ultimately, the creation of insightful and well-supported research papers or projects.

Setting Up Your Note-Taking System

1. choose the right tools.

Select a note-taking tool that aligns with your preferences and needs. Whether it's digital tools like Otio or traditional pen and paper, ensure it complements your research style.

2. Create a Structure

Establish a consistent and intuitive organizational system for your notes. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, or numbering to categorize information effectively.

3. Utilize Templates

Develop templates for different types of research notes, such as literature reviews, interview summaries, or data analysis. Templates can streamline your note-taking process and maintain consistency.

Effective Note-Taking Strategies

1. active reading.

Engage with the material actively by highlighting key points, jotting down questions, and summarizing main ideas. This helps in digesting and internalizing the content.

2. Summarize and Paraphrase

Rather than copying verbatim, condense information into your own words. This aids in comprehension and prevents plagiarism when incorporating sources into your work.

3. Cite Sources Properly

Always record the sources of your information alongside your notes. Include bibliographic details or hyperlinks to ensure proper referencing and easy retrieval when needed.

Organizing and Reviewing Your Notes

1. create a tagging system.

Employ tags or labels to categorize and link related notes. This enables quick retrieval of information based on topics, themes, or keywords.

2. Regular Review

Schedule periodic reviews of your notes to reinforce learning, identify connections between ideas, and clarify any ambiguities. This practice enhances retention and aids in synthesizing information.

3. Revision and Refinement

Continuously refine and update your notes as your research progresses. Add new insights, revisit older notes for relevance, and connect disparate pieces of information to enhance the coherence of your work.

Transforming Research Efficiency with Otio's AI-Powered Workspace

Knowledge workers, researchers, and students can revolutionize their research processes with Otio , an AI-native workspace designed to streamline data collection, extraction of key insights, and creation of draft outputs. By integrating AI-generated notes, source-grounded Q&A chat features, and AI-assisted writing capabilities, Otio empowers users to navigate the complexities of research effectively.  Embrace a seamless research experience with Otio - your ultimate AI research and writing partner .

Otio addresses the content overload challenge faced by knowledge workers, researchers, and students by offering an all-in-one AI-native workspace. By allowing users to seamlessly collect data from various sources such as bookmarks, tweets, articles, and videos, Otio simplifies the initial stage of the research process. This aggregation feature not only saves time but also ensures that users have a comprehensive set of resources at their disposal.

AI-Generated Notes and Source-Grounded Q&A Chat

One of Otio 's standout features is its ability to extract key takeaways from collected sources by providing detailed AI-generated notes. These notes offer a condensed version of the content, making it easier for researchers to grasp essential information quickly. The source-grounded Q&A chat function enables users to engage with their collected material in a conversational manner, facilitating a deeper understanding of the content.

Efficient Drafting with Otio

Transitioning from reading materials to drafting outputs is often a time-consuming process for researchers. Otio streamlines this transition by assisting users in creating draft outputs directly from the sources they have collected. This feature not only accelerates the writing process but also ensures that the drafted content remains closely tied to the original sources, enhancing the overall quality of the output.

AI-Assisted Writing for Research Papers/Essays

In addition to its data collection and note-taking capabilities, Otio offers AI-assisted writing functionality to help users compose research papers and essays more efficiently. By leveraging AI technology, Otio provides users with writing suggestions, grammar corrections , and structural guidance, empowering them to produce high-quality written work in less time.

Embracing Otio as Your AI Research and Writing Partner

Otio's comprehensive suite of features, including AI-generated notes, source-grounded Q&A chat, efficient drafting tools, and AI-assisted writing, make it a valuable asset for knowledge workers, researchers, and students looking to streamline their research workflows. By integrating Otio into their processes, users can enhance their productivity, improve the quality of their work, and ultimately, achieve greater success in their research endeavors.

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How to Take Notes

How to Use Sources Effectively

Most articles in periodicals and some of the book sources you use, especially those from the children’s room at the library, are probably short enough that you can read them from beginning to end in a reasonable amount of time. Others, however, may be too long for you to do that, and some are likely to cover much more than just your topic. Use the table of contents and the index in a longer book to find the parts of the book that contain information on your topic. When you turn to those parts, skim them to make sure they contain information you can use. Feel free to skip parts that don’t relate to your questions, so you can get the information you need as quickly and efficiently as possible.

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Don’t—start reading a book and writing down information on a sheet of notebook paper. If you make this mistake, you’ll end up with a lot of disorganized scribbling that may be practically useless when you’re ready to outline your research paper and write a first draft. Some students who tried this had to cut up their notes into tiny strips, spread them out on the floor, and then tape the strips back together in order to put their information in an order that made sense. Other students couldn’t even do that—without going to a photocopier first—because they had written on both sides of the paper. To avoid that kind of trouble, use the tried-and-true method students have been using for years—take notes on index cards.

Taking Notes on Index Cards

As you begin reading your sources, use either 3″ x 5″ or 4″ x 6″ index cards to write down information you might use in your paper. The first thing to remember is: Write only one idea on each card. Even if you write only a few words on one card, don’t write anything about a new idea on that card. Begin a new card instead. Also, keep all your notes for one card only on that card. It’s fine to write on both the front and back of a card, but don’t carry the same note over to a second card. If you have that much to write, you probably have more than one idea.

After you complete a note card, write the source number of the book you used in the upper left corner of the card. Below the source number, write the exact number or numbers of the pages on which you found the information. In the upper right corner, write one or two words that describe the specific subject of the card. These words are like a headline that describes the main information on the card. Be as clear as possible because you will need these headlines later.

After you finish taking notes from a source, write a check mark on your source card as a reminder that you’ve gone through that source thoroughly and written down all the important information you found there. That way, you won’t wonder later whether you should go back and read that source again.

Taking Notes on Your Computer

Another way to take notes is on your computer. In order to use this method, you have to rely completely on sources that you can take home, unless you have a laptop computer that you can take with you to the library.

If you do choose to take notes on your computer, think of each entry on your screen as one in a pack of electronic note cards. Write your notes exactly as if you were using index cards. Be sure to leave space between each note so that they don’t run together and look confusing when you’re ready to use them. You might want to insert a page break between each “note card.”

When deciding whether to use note cards or a computer, remember one thing—high-tech is not always better. Many students find low-tech index cards easier to organize and use than computer notes that have to be moved around by cutting and pasting. In the end, you’re the one who knows best how you work, so the choice is up to you.

How to Take Effective Notes

Knowing the best format for notes is important, but knowing what to write on your cards or on your computer is essential. Strong notes are the backbone of a good research paper.

Not Too Much or Too Little

When researching, you’re likely to find a lot of interesting information that you never knew before. That’s great! You can never learn too much. But for now your goal is to find information you can use in your research paper. Giving in to the temptation to take notes on every detail you find in your research can lead to a huge volume of notes—many of which you won’t use at all. This can become difficult to manage at later stages, so limit yourself to information that really belongs in your paper. If you think a piece of information might be useful but you aren’t sure, ask yourself whether it helps answer one of your research questions.

Writing too much is one pitfall; writing too little is another. Consider this scenario: You’ve been working in the library for a couple of hours, and your hand grows tired from writing. You come to a fairly complicated passage about how to tell if a dog is angry, so you say to yourself, “I don’t have to write all this down. I’ll remember.” But you won’t remember—especially after all the reading and note taking you have been doing. If you find information you know you want to use later on, get it down. If you’re too tired, take a break or take off the rest of the day and return tomorrow when you’re fresh.

To Note or Not to Note: That is the Question

What if you come across an idea or piece of information that you’ve already found in another source? Should you write it down again? You don’t want to end up with a whole stack of cards with the same information on each one. On the other hand, knowing that more than one source agrees on a particular point is helpful. Here’s the solution: Simply add the number of the new source to the note card that already has the same piece of information written on it. Take notes on both sources. In your paper, you may want to come right out and say that sources disagree on this point. You may even want to support one opinion or the other—if you think you have a strong enough argument based on facts from your research.

Paraphrasing—Not Copying

Have you ever heard the word plagiarism? It means copying someone else’s words and claiming them as your own. It’s really a kind of stealing, and there are strict rules against it.

The trouble is many students plagiarize without meaning to do so. The problem starts at the note-taking stage. As a student takes notes, he or she may simply copy the exact words from a source. The student doesn’t put quotation marks around the words to show that they are someone else’s. When it comes time to draft the paper, the student doesn’t even remember that those words were copied from a source, and the words find their way into the draft and then into the final paper. Without intending to do so, that student has plagiarized, or stolen, another person’s words.

The way to avoid plagiarism is to paraphrase, or write down ideas in your own words rather than copy them exactly. Look again at the model note cards in this chapter, and notice that the words in the notes are not the same as the words from the sources. Some of the notes are not even written in complete sentences. Writing in incomplete sentences is one way to make sure you don’t copy—and it saves you time, energy, and space. When you write a draft of your research paper, of course, you will use complete sentences.

How to Organize Your Notes

Once you’ve used all your sources and taken all your notes, what do you have? You have a stack of cards (or if you’ve taken notes on a computer, screen after screen of entries) about a lot of stuff in no particular order. Now you need to organize your notes in order to turn them into the powerful tool that helps you outline and draft your research paper. Following are some ideas on how to do this, so get your thinking skills in gear to start doing the job for your own paper.

Organizing Note Cards

The beauty of using index cards to take notes is that you can move them around until they are in the order you want. You don’t have to go through complicated cutting-and-pasting procedures, as you would on your computer, and you can lay your cards out where you can see them all at once. One word of caution—work on a surface where your cards won’t fall on the floor while you’re organizing them.

Start by sorting all your cards with the same headlines into the same piles, since all of these note cards are about the same basic idea. You don’t have to worry about keeping notes from the same sources together because each card is marked with a number identifying its source.

Next, arrange the piles of cards so that the order the ideas appear in makes sense. Experts have named six basic types of order. One—or a combination of these—may work for you:

• Chronological , or Time, Order covers events in the order in which they happened. This kind of order works best for papers that discuss historical events or tell about a person’s life.
• Spatial  Order organizes your information by its place or position. This kind of order can work for papers about geography or about how to design something—a garden, for example.
• Cause and Effect  discusses how one event or action leads to another. This kind of organization works well if your paper explains a scientific process or events in history.
• Problem/Solution explains a problem and one or more ways in which it can be solved. You might use this type of organization for a paper about an environmental issue, such as global warming.
• Compare and Contrast  discusses similarities and differences between people, things, events, or ideas.
• Order of  Importance  explains an idea, starting with its most important aspects first and ending with the least important aspects—or the other way around.

After you determine your basic organization, arrange your piles accordingly. You’ll end up with three main piles—one for sounds, one for facial expressions, and one for body language. Go through each pile and put the individual cards in an order that makes sense. Don’t forget that you can move your cards around, trying out different organizations, until you are satisfied that one idea flows logically into another. Use a paper clip or rubber band to hold the piles together, and then stack them in the order you choose. Put a big rubber band around the whole stack so the cards stay in order.

Organizing Notes on Your Computer

If you’ve taken notes on a computer, organize them in much the same way you would organize index cards. The difference is that you use the cut-and-paste functions on your computer rather than moving cards around. The advantage is that you end up with something that’s already typed—something you can eventually turn into an outline without having to copy anything over. The disadvantage is that you may have more trouble moving computer notes around than note cards: You can’t lay your notes out and look at them all at once, and you may get confused when trying to find where information has moved within a long file on your computer screen.

However, be sure to back up your note cards on an external storage system of your choice. In addition, print hard copies as you work. This way, you won’t lose your material if your hard drive crashes or the file develops a glitch.

Developing a Working Bibliography

When you start your research, your instructor may ask you to prepare a working bibliography listing the sources you plan to use. Your working bibliography differs from your Works Cited page in its scope: your working bibliography is much larger. Your Works Cited page will include only those sources you have actually cited in your research paper.

To prepare a working bibliography, arrange your note cards in the order required by your documentation system (such as MLA and APA) and keyboard the entries following the correct form. If you have created your bibliography cards on the computer, you just have to sort them, usually into alphabetical order.

Developing an Annotated Bibliography

Some instructors may ask you to create an annotated bibliography as a middle step between your working bibliography and your Works Cited page. An annotated bibliography is the same as a working bibliography except that it includes comments about the sources. These notes enable your instructor to assess your progress. They also help you evaluate your information more easily. For example, you might note that some sources are difficult to find, hard to read, or especially useful.

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Study Skills

Research skills.

• Searching the literature
• Note making for dissertations
• Research Data Management
• Copyright and licenses
• Publishing in journals
• Publishing academic books
• Depositing your thesis
• Research metrics
• Build your online profile
• Finding support

Note making for dissertations: First steps into writing

Note making (as opposed to note taking) is an active practice of recording relevant parts of reading for your research as well as your reflections and critiques of those studies. Note making, therefore, is a pre-writing exercise that helps you to organise your thoughts prior to writing. In this module, we will cover:

• The difference between note taking and note making
• Seven tips for good note making
• Strategies for structuring your notes and asking critical questions
• Different styles of note making

To complete this section, you will need:

• Approximately 20-30 minutes.
• Access to the internet. All the resources used here are available freely.
• Some equipment for jotting down your thoughts, a pen and paper will do, or your phone or another electronic device.

Note taking v note making

When you think about note taking, what comes to mind? Perhaps trying to record everything said in a lecture? Perhaps trying to write down everything included in readings required for a course?

• Note taking is a passive process. When you take notes, you are often trying to record everything that you are reading or listening to. However, you may have noticed that this takes a lot of effort and often results in too many notes to be useful.  
• Note making , on the other hand, is an active practice, based on the needs and priorities of your project. Note making is an opportunity for you to ask critical questions of your readings and to synthesise ideas as they pertain to your research questions. Making notes is a pre-writing exercise that develops your academic voice and makes writing significantly easier.

Seven tips for effective note making

Note making is an active process based on the needs of your research. This video contains seven tips to help you make brilliant notes from articles and books to make the most of the time you spend reading and writing.

• Transcript of Seven Tips for Effective Notemaking

Question prompts for strategic note making

You might consider structuring your notes to answer the following questions. Remember that note making is based on your needs, so not all of these questions will apply in all cases. You might try answering these questions using the note making styles discussed in the next section.

• Question prompts for strategic note making
• Background question prompts
• Critical question prompts
• Synthesis question prompts

Answer these six questions to frame your reading and provide context.

• What is the context in which the text was written? What came before it? Are there competing ideas?
• Who is the intended audience?
• What is the author’s purpose?
• How is the writing organised?
• What are the author’s methods?
• What is the author’s key argument and conclusions?

Answer these six questions to determine your critical perspectivess and develop your academic voice.

• What are the most interesting/compelling ideas (to you) in this study?
• Why do you find them interesting? How do they relate to your study?
• What questions do you have about the study?
• What could it cover better? How could it have defended its research better?
• What are the implications of the study? (Look not just to the conclusions but also to definitions and models)
• Are there any gaps in the study? (Look not just at conclusions but definitions, literature review, methodology)

Answer these five questions to compare aspects of various studies (such as for a literature review. 

• What are the similarities and differences in the literature?
• Critically analyse the strengths, limitations, debates and themes that emerg from the literature.
• What would you suggest for future research or practice?
• Where are the gaps in the literature? What is missing? Why?
• What new questions should be asked in this area of study?

Styles of note making

• Linear notes . Great for recording thoughts about your readings. [video]
• Mind mapping : Great for thinking through complex topics. [video]

Further sites that discuss techniques for note making:

• Note-taking techniques
• Common note-taking methods
• Strategies for effective note making  

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Image Credits: Image #1: David Travis on Unsplash ; Image #2: Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

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Research Made Easy: Scientific Note-taking

While researching and learning about new concepts, it is crucial for most researchers to structure and write down the newly acquired knowledge in a concise way. This allows them to come back to and effectively recall these concepts later. Additionally, structuring your knowledge outside of your head in a written form is useful in order to make new connections between information as well as novel discoveries. In part 2 of our Blog series on “Research Made Easy”, we have curated methods used by Lamarrresearchers that help them achieve structure and clarity in their thinking process.

Remember what you read through note-taking

When reading research articles, some scientists find it really beneficial to “work with the material instead of just reading it”. This includes highlighting the articles, sometimes with different colors indicating different semantic concepts, scribbling their thoughts in the margins or summarizing key concepts in their own words. To combine knowledge from different sources into one overarching hierarchy, a popular method is to create a mind map.

Mind maps help in visualizing how different concepts relate to each other. They serve as a vehicle to make sense of complex, interconnected and novel concepts. Their hierarchical structure can also help in clearly defining sub concepts that may be explored in depth individually.

For some researchers we interviewed, structuring knowledge and ideas in a written form is also very beneficial. Whether it’s summarizing key concepts of articles, writing overview notes of new topics they’ve learned about or concisely formalizing an idea to make it succinct and less fuzzy, note-taking is essential in the everyday life of our Lamarrresearchers.

Since mathematical equations, graphs and (pseudo)code are different forms of information often used in Machine Learning, it is important that the note-taking tools used support these kinds of resources. Popular tools include Overleaf, which is an online LaTeX editor that facilitates inserting mathematical notation, Evernote, a tool that helps you keep track of rich text notes across devices and Notion, which is similar to Evernote and invites collaboration via its sharing functionality. How you structure your notes and how in-depth you want to write them is up to you. However, from our experience, the same concept as mentioned in the previous blog post on efficient literature study still holds true: Keep it simple and straightforward (KISS) ! There is no need to needlessly formalize and over complicate your note-taking system from the beginning. Tools like Notion and Evernote allow you to grow into a system that you feel comfortable with over time.

Zettelkasten: Build a second brain

A novel way of taking and organizing your research notes, that has gained popularity in the community recently, is called a Zettelkasten , which literally translates to slipbox . The concept was famously used and popularized by German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who claimed that it allowed him to make new connections between his notes so efficiently that it allowed him to be a highly prolific writer. A Zettelkasten is sometimes referred to as a second brain since it allows you to store your ideas and thoughts externally and makes it easy to link them together in order to derive new concepts and connections between previously separate items of thought. Luhmann’s Zettelkasten is currently in the process of being digitized and can be explored here .

Each note in the system is supposed to be an atomic idea, thought or concept. These notes are then implicitly arranged in a hierarchy by “linking” to and from them. In the analog world, this involves writing numbers and hierarchy levels in the top corners of the note itself.

While managing such a big system of paper slips is a daunting task, nowadays, there are two popular digital tools implementing this concept: Roam Research and Obsidian . Both follow the idea of linking information in the way that we are used to from the Internet, namely via hyperlinks. You can refer to another digital note via a link, and even link to specific parts of your notes like headings. This allows the digital Zettelkasten to be more flexible and extensible according to your specific needs and preferences in regard to how much information you want to have on your cards, what type of cards you find useful etc. Because notes are just digital documents, both tools also automatically suggest linking certain notes based on the occurrence and frequency of certain words and phrases. That way, an interconnected web of notes emerges inside your second brain almost automatically, sparking new ideas and helping you to organize and think about your research in unexpected and fruitful ways.

Time management for effective research

Of course, taking diligent notes and organizing them in a useful manner takes some time, no matter how simple your system is going to be. To get the most benefit out of the time you have in a day, there are certain concepts and tools that help you to keep track of your tasks and avoid spending your time unwisely. The next blog post in this series will discuss tips and tools for time management and keeping track of your tasks.

Matthias Jakobs ,

5. April 2023

• note-taking
• productivity
• self organization
• time management
• Zettelkasten

Matthias Jakobs

Matthias Jakobs focuses his research on trustworthy machine learning. He is currently working on various problems, including providing guarantees for explanation methods based on Shapley values, both in theory and in practical applications. Additionally, he is exploring the combination of explainability models with Bayesian Neural Networks (BNNs). He is particularly interested in illuminating the decision-making process of black-box models to instill greater trust in the decisions made by neural networks, […]

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